How to teach ... the Mali conflict

The Guardian Teacher Network has a wealth of resources to help students understand the current conflict in Mali

Malian soldiers arrive in the recently liberated town of Douentza. French troops have moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands. Photograph: Joe Penney/Reuters

Thousands of people have fled fighting in Mali. Some have crossed the border into neighbouring countries such as Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso. The conflict was rarely mentioned in the news until France stepped into the fray last month and many younger people know very little about it.

The Guardian Teacher Network has resources to help young people explore the conflict through citizenship, English and geography lessons and beyond, to find out what the conflict is about and why France is involved. There are also some illuminating guides to discussing the wider issues of conflict.

Get down to the basics with this Mali Explainer. The resource sets out the context and history of the conflict as well as explaining what's going on now, who is involved and what impact this is having on the people of Mali. The Guardian Teacher Network's Explainer series is designed to give background to news stories young people may know little about, the Explainers are pitched at 11- to 14-year-olds, but they are produced as word documents making it easy to adapt for older or younger students.

The Explainer can be used as a handout for interested students or as part of a lesson or tutor time using the accompanying News in Focus on Mali. This is a ready-made PowerPoint presentation of 22 photographs by photojournalists that gives an overview of the conflict through images.

More context to the Mali conflict is provided by Plan UK, which has been distributing school kits to children in Ségou in central Mali and running weekly catch-up classes to help displaced girls and boys keep up with their school work as part of their "education in emergencies" work. See Children in Crossfire to find out about Ahmed, a boy who was forced to flee with his dad from Timbuktu because armed insurgents closed all schools in northern Mali. The father and son fled to Ségou, joining over 30,000 displaced people. Ahmed's mother and siblings are still in Timbuktu, around 1,000km away. Also find out about the life and hopes of a 13-year-old girl from Mali in Meet Bintou.

The British Red Cross has shared some thought-provoking discussion ideas on the conflict in Mali. Many refugees arrive at distribution points run by aid agencies without money, clothing or food. What do students think their priority would be? In a poor country, with much confusion and gunfire, who might help? Also find the charity's War Wounded resource, in which students analyse a powerful photograph using these discussion points. The resources help students explore what acting with humanity during an armed conflict might entail and find out why it's important that the laws of war require warring parties to provide medical help to injured enemies.

Oxfam's Making sense of world conflicts is an incredible resource drawing on huge amounts of source material, case studies, and country information. The lesson plans will help secondary school-aged students investigate the complex subject of conflict including the current problems in in Mali. The lessons build strength in inquiry, discussion skills, high-level reasoning and creative thinking and look at key issues in today's world, including: conflicts currently taking place, the connections between conflict and poverty, how the arms trade works, and when a conflict become a war.

Amnesty International has produced this Mali Unrest briefing, which gives a brief account of Mali's history, charts the human-rights violations that occurred in 2012 during the unrest to the north of the country and sets out Amnesty's calls upon the government of Mali and international community. This document has been written as a press briefing rather than an education resource, but teachers and sixth-formers will find it invaluable.

Of course the situation in Mali is changing every day. For the latest news on what is happening see the Guardian's Mali section, where you will also find this useful interactive on the conflict.